Families are ‘cradles of the future’, says Pope Leo

The Pope emphasised that marriage represents ‘not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful’.

Pope Leo XIV declared families “the cradle of the future of humanity” as he celebrated Mass for thousands of pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square for the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly on Sunday.

Speaking to families from nearly 120 countries on a sunny morning in Rome, the Pope emphasised the fundamental role of family relationships in God’s plan for salvation, drawing from the gospel reading of Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper.

“Dear friends, we received life before we ever desired it,” Pope Leo XIV said in his homily on 1 June.

“As soon as we were born, we needed others in order to live. Left to ourselves, we would not have survived. Someone else saved us by caring for us in body and spirit. All of us are alive today thanks to a relationship, a free and freeing relationship of human kindness and mutual care.”

The Pope made an extended tour of the square in the popemobile before Mass, blessing children and greeting the crowds of families who had travelled to Rome for the 2025 Jubilee.

In his homily, Pope Leo emphasised that marriage represents “not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful”. He cited Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae.

The Pope noted several beatified married couples as exemplars for today’s world, including Louis and Zélie Martin, parents of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, and Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, who lived in Rome in the twentieth century. He also remembered the Polish Ulma family, “parents and children, united in love and martyrdom” during the Second World War.

“By pointing to them as exemplary witnesses of married life, the Church tells us that today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love and to defeat, thanks to its unifying and reconciling power, the forces that break down relationships and societies,” Leo said.

He offered specific guidance to different generations present at the celebration. Parents, he said, should strive to be “examples of integrity to your children, acting as you want them to act, educating them in freedom through obedience, always seeing the good in them and finding ways to nurture it”.

Children should “show gratitude to your parents”, he said, noting that saying “thank you” each day “is the first way to honour your father and your mother”.

To grandparents and elderly people, he recommended watching “over your loved ones with wisdom and compassion, and with the humility and patience that come with age”.

Pope Leo described the family’s role in transmitting faith, declaring that “in the family, faith is handed on together with life, generation after generation. It is shared like food at the family table and like the love in our hearts.”

Following the Mass, the Pope Leo led the Regina Caeli, using the occasion to remember families suffering from war.

“May the Virgin Mary bless families and sustain them in their difficulties. I think especially of those who suffer because of war in the Middle East, in Ukraine and in other parts of the world,” he said.

He also commemorated the beatification of Blessed Cristofora Klomfass and 14 companion religious sisters of the Congregation of St Catherine Virgin and Martyr, who were killed by Soviet soldiers in 1945 in territories of present-day Poland.

“Despite the climate of hatred and terror against the Catholic faith, they continued to serve the sick and orphans,” he noted.

During his remarks, Pope Leo XIV expressed particular joy at welcoming so many children to the celebration, calling them sources of renewed hope. He praised grandparents and elderly people as “genuine models of faith and inspiration for young generations”.

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